This page reflects activity in Science-Poetry (or Poetry-Science?) interaction:
01.10 – 28.11.15 Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at ELINAS, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nueremberg
11.11.14 Midlands Science Festival, Athlone.
05.11.14 The Lab, Foley St Dublin (with Luke Drury)
02.11.14 Sunday Feature: Science and Poetry BBC Radio 3
09-11.07.2014 Invited speaker at Inaugural Conference of Commission on Science and Literature, at National Hellenic Research Foundation, Athens. Title: A Tale of Two Williams, One Miroslav and Me
24.06.2014 Invited speaker at Science Meets Poetry 4, at European Science Open Forum 2014, Copenhagen. Title: Remembering Seamus Heaney
29.05 – 01.06.2014 Invited speaker at Inaugural Conference of ELINAS: Physics and Literature, at Erlangen Center for Literature and Natural Sciences, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen. Title: The Making of a Mystic Dream of 4
February 2013: The proceedings of Science Meets Poetry 3 has been published by Euroscience. Edited by Jean-Patrick Connerade and Iggy McGovern, the proceedings presents the text of the lectures in this session of ESOF2012, held in Dublin in July 2012. Also included are poems by participants in the session, and a number of photographs.
July 2012: The 4,000 delegates to ESOF2012 were given a copy of 2012: Twenty Irish Poets Respond to Science in Twelve Lines. The cover shows stone sculptures by Eileen MacDonagh; their icosahedral shape of 20 faces and 12 vertices reflects the 2012 theme; the medium of stone also chimes with that of the principal sponsor, CRH plc.
Science Meets Poetry 3, a component of ESOF2012, attracted good audiences. This day-long seminar consisted of lectures and presentations by scientist and poets from Ireland, Britain, France, Germany and Russia. Honoured guests included Professor Seamus Heaney and President Michael D Higgins.
The event was co-chaired by Professors Jean-Patrick Connerade (aka the French poet Chaunes) and Iggy McGovern. Ireland-related contributions included poet and palaeontologist Alla Valeria Michalevich on the significance of Irish Poetry in Russia, Maurice Riordan on the making of the anthology Wild Reckoning (during which Seamus Heaney read his poem St Kevin and The Blackbird), Iggy McGovern on the correspondence between William Rowan Hamilton and William Wordsworth, and short readings by younger scientist-poets Kate Dempsey, Noel Duffy and Mary Montague. See Mary’s subsequent blog at http://chasingavianvoices.wordpress.com/.
Iggy McGovern – Poet and Physicist 